Battle of Chugoku

The Battle of Chugoku was a military engagement of the Sengoku Period in which forces from the Oda and Tachibana clans were defeated by the Mori clan. Motonari Mori, previously thought dead, came out of hiding to lead his forces and throw full force against the Tachibana, as the Oda had little resources to fight.

Background
Motonari Mori was known as a man of rare cunning. After bringing his clan to prominence, he faked his own death and disappeared from the public realm. Time passed, and soon Nobunaga Oda, on his path to conquest, invaded the capital city of Kyoto. The ruling shogun fled, relying on the Mori to secure his safe passage. Nobunaga immediately dispatched one of his most trusted generals, Hideyoshi Hashiba, to crush the Mori. He further ordered his allies in the Tachibana clan to assist by attacking from the opposite direction. Drawn out of hiding by this crisis, Motonari sprang into action. Sensing that Hideyoshi's advance was merely a distraction, he moved swiftly to attack the Tachibana forces.

Battle
The Tachibana marched on Terumoto Mori in the main camp; while they were focused on that task, Motonari planned to go forth from the southern garrison and strike the enemy from the rear. To do that, he needed to clear out the southern garrison by defeating Shigeyuki Ono. From there, he could launch an attack on the Tachibana main camp. The garrisons along the way would each be protected by a defense captain. Motonari had to sneak by without alerting the defense captain to their presence, cut through the Western Forest, and get to the Exit Point. The enemy was unaware that he was there - or for the matter, that he was alive. His grandson Terumoto was thus made the official commander of the army.

Motonari set his plan into motion, capturing the southern garrison from Ono's troops discreetly. The Tachibana were not alerted to this and Motonari planned to draw Korenobu Yufu out to the southern garrison to defeat him, as moving on his garrison would attract too much attention. While he was moving, the Tachibana command planned out how they would win. Muneshige Tachibana told his men to surround the enemy camp and wait for them to crack, shoring up his defenses. His wife Ginchiyo Tachibana advised him to make a move, so he dispatched an ambush unit to the forest. However, the Mori beat him to the punch and ambushed his army. Muneshige ordered his men to fall back while returning fire, and the Mori were in pursuit. At that time, Motonari lured Korenobu out and defeated him. Muneshige began to notice that he was not receiving any reports from his men, and Ginchiyo noticed that the enemy was moving strangely and fighting under the inspired leadership of a man like Motonari, but reassured herself that he died. Bitchu Morishita defeated Takakage Kobayakawa in battle, but Tsurasada Totoki was defeated by Takashiga Amano, and Motonari Mori defeated both Ietada Ando and Kihachiro Ono in the forest.

At that point, Muneshige felt that if Motonari was in charge, he would lead a sneak attack through the forest; he sent some units to sweep the Western Forest for Mori activity. He led this fraction of the army into the forest, thinking that it would be safe to check if the Mori were using Motonari's strategies. Motonari captured a garrison by defeating Tsurahisa Totoki, and when he advanced further into the woods, he met Muneshige and his army. In a battle in the wooded area, Motonari destroyed the Tachibana army sent to scan the area and made his way to the exit.

Having defeated the rest of the Tachibana Army, Motonari advanced on the Tachibana camp and met Ginchiyo's garrison in the main camp. The Mori defeated the Tachibana army by capturing their base, and Motonari decided to stay with his clan until peace was achieved once more.

Aftermath
The captured Tachibana daimyo were forced to make peace, but Motonari asked them to become his allies and fight alongside him against the expanding Oda. They agreed to serve as vassals, and the Mori-Tachibana alliance would defeat an Oda invasion later that year at the First Battle of Kizugawa and later the Battle of Kozuki Castle.